Nurse Sharks.

[landlocked]

kyleterry once bubbled in another thread...
I always thought nurse Sharks were tame, so last month in Belize, when I saw a nurse, I gave my camera to my son 12 year old son and told him to get a picture of me beside the nurse. Bottom line is he bit me. .... It took three days for the bleeding to completely stop. ....

There is a dive park in Utah that has 4 nurse sharks in the pond. One is currently around 7 feet long. The ponds are small and the vis, I have heard, can be vey poor. Rumor is that it is fun to swim there because nurse sharks don't have any teeth! (A potentially dangerous attitude?) I think that it is an accident waiting to happen. Personnally, I have no desire to dive with nurse sharks where viz is measured in single digits. (btw, they say that they feed the sharks romain lettuce. Friend of mine seen one snack on one of the many fish there.) So, do nurse sharks make good low viz dive buddies, or is my paranoia justified?

 

[Diversauras]

Where is the salt water pond in Utah? I'm thinking here that Nurse sharks are sea creatures and don't live in fresh water?

 

[JamieZ]

Read here for Nurse Shark Info. http://www.enchantedlearning.com/subjects/sharks/species/Nurseshark.shtml

By the way they do have teeth.

 

[Dee]

I've read about this place....Seabase

Sounds interesting but I'd like to hear what someone who has been there has to say.

You should have no worry about nurse sharks. They are very passive creatures as long as you don't crowd them and don't harass them. Yes, they have teeth but not for you!

 

[rkru]

do have teeth. I saw a guy get bit while he was hand feeding them. It was a nasty bite.

 

[Diversauras]

Dee once bubbled...
I've read about this place....Seabase

Well I'll be....

 

[roakey]

From someone who dives an aquarium with nurse sharks (http://www.oceanjourney.org/)…

They’re obviously used to divers, so there’s no danger unless you harass them. I wouldn’t mess with them in the wild, however, because though normally docile, just like any wild animal, they can be unpredictable and as stated, can inflict a very nasty bite.

I’ve got a friend who’s dove Seabase, I’ll see if he’s willing to pop in and post something about it.

Roak

 

[landlocked]

... ya'll think I'm being a little too paranoid? I think the thing that bothers me is the potential very low viz. I hear they like to sleep on the dive platform. Had one local tell me how he watched two new divers do a semi-uncontrolled decent to the platform and landed right on top of one. The sharked acted annoyed but not suprised. The divers were a different story.
btw. official site is http://www.seabase.net/

 

[roakey]

landlocked once bubbled...
... ya'll think I'm being a little too paranoid?

Yhea, sooner or later you'll come to learn that seeing sharks is a treat, not something to be afraid of. Shark encounters are relatively rare, so I relish every one. I’d jump at the opportunity to see one up close and personal at Seabase!

One of my fondest memories of diving in the shark exhibit was one day when I was feeding the small fish (divers do not feed the sharks, they’re fed from the surface by the aquarists). Two of our Nurse’s were being particularly friendly, one lying across my calves and another in my lap (I was in a slightly sitting back kneeling position). We are strictly forbidden to *initiate* any kind interaction with anything in the exhibit, so having two sharks snuggle up to me like that was a lot of fun!

The only “accident” we’ve ever had with the Nurses is with a diver with zip wrist seals (with “tails” on the zippers to make zipping and unzipping easier). One of the nurses mistook this tail fluttering in the water for something tasty and grabbed onto it and shook it, then spat it out. The diver was not hurt but said it was a wild ride for a few seconds. The only possible injuries were to the eardrums of the guests outside the exhibit when one woman screamed at the top of her lungs thinking the diver was being eaten alive.

The damage done by the movie “Jaws” is still with us.

Roak

 

[landlocked]

roakey once bubbled...
I’d jump at the opportunity to see one up close and personal at Seabase!

Seabase is in reach from Colorado. We (Mudguppy and I) could meet you there Saturday October 5th. Sometime late afternoon?